Eggcorn Forum

Announcement

Registrations are currently closed because of a technical problem. Please send email to if you wish to register.

The forum administrator reserves the right to request users to plausibly demonstrate that they are real people with an interest in the topic of eggcorns. Otherwise they may be removed with no further justification. Likewise, accounts that have not been used for posting may be removed.

Re: 'dull-set tones' for 'dulcet tones'

Good one. Here’s another hit, from a record of historic incidents of 1893 at a college and seminary in Maryland. On special occasions, they liked to pen odes and sing ballads.

October 11, 1894. The Barbecue Paper was read after breakfast and occupied an hour and a half, but was listened to with interest by Faculty as well as by students. This year’s paper was delicate, tasteful and clever. It was in prose and verse intermingled, and consisted in the main of a romaunt interspersed with quips and cuts and dashes at various companions who had become notable for any assailable peculiarity.

Here’s the second verse of a ballad sung at the Centennial celebrations. No telling whether “dull-set” here is innocent or a cutting dash:

II. They gather at the vesper hour beneath the spreading trees,
And oft these sounds of ‘dull-set’ strains are wafted on the breeze:
“Kentucky Home,” “Down on the Farm,” “We’re Going Home Tomorrow,”
And if tobacco you possess, the whole blamed gang will borrow.Barbecue Paper